


Hold Me Close And We'll Be Alright

by Three_Oaks



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Mission Gone Wrong, Mutual Pining, badass benji, based on that one idea, benji has cold powers and is weak to heat, ethan has hot powers and is weak to cold
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28249641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Three_Oaks/pseuds/Three_Oaks
Summary: A very, very strange bomb goes off, and Ethan and Benji find themselves facing an unexpected challenge. With as many (yet) unresolved feelings as can be expected.Based on what was discussed regarding Tom and Simon's preferred temperature range.
Relationships: Benji Dunn/Ethan Hunt
Comments: 14
Kudos: 20





	Hold Me Close And We'll Be Alright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Demigoat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demigoat/gifts).



> MERRY CHRISTMAS DEMI
> 
> Hope you enjoy!!! I'm so sorry this isn't complete yet, but it will be soon!

What was one more bomb? Benji asked himself. Or, better question, why were there so many bombs? Unknowable. Maybe he didn't want to know. All he knew was that it was his responsibility, for the people working away in the floors below of this office building, for the people who'd be dragged in the war it would spark if it exploded, for Luther, who'd figured out about it. For Ethan.

They had three hours. It would be fine.

He pushed the door of the next room open, gun raised.

"Ethan. Ethan, do you see that?" Benji said through his earpiece, pointing to the black box, hidden away behind a pillar.

"I do. Don't move, I'll be right there."

"Ethan, that's out of question. I'm perfectly capable of..."

"I know. I trust you, Benji." Then, after a brief halt, "I'd just rather be with you, if that's alright."

Benji's breath caught. 

"See you soon, Ethan," he answered, before he could think too hard about the words Ethan had chosen. Or was it the tone? Or all of it? The way he'd said it so much more quietly, as if he were scared anyone else would hear it? 

Or it was nothing.

It was nothing.

After a deep sigh, Benji pushed these entangled thoughts at the very back of his skull, where he tried to keep them. The bomb. They were there for the bomb.

He wasn't even sure it existed, until he'd found it. Luther had spent the past eight days meticulously combing every computer from the embassy, looking for any hints of where it was. Or what it was. It was him who'd picked up on the chatter first, of something happening there, where any spark could rekindle a civil war, something vague, but dangerous. Benji had been sure it would be something special, a poison gas of a new kind, a nuclear missile, something to justify the level of mystery. But no, it was just a bomb.

He was slightly disappointed. 

"Benji. Everything alright?"

"Yeah. I'm glad you're here," he said, before he could stop himself.

Ethan's only answer was one of his smiles, the ones that made him die a little inside each time. He loved him for more reason that he could cite in a century, but that smile? That smile, directed at him, of all people? He never had a chance.

"So, the bomb?" Ethan asked.

"Yes! Yes, the bomb. Let's have a look at it, shall we?"

Benji kneeled down, laying out his equipment next to him. This was what he was good at, the nuts and bolts and transistors, figuring out the moving parts and the blinking lights. Had he ever grown up from the boy who'd taken his mother's television apart to understand how it worked? 

Well, his mother's television wasn't at risk of sparking a war, unlike this bomb.

He better get to it.

Ethan sat next to him, back rested against the pillar, watching the entrance of the room. He was quiet as a cat, but Benji knew he'd jump into action at the slightest sign of danger. To protect him. The thought made him feel warm in a way he did not want to examine up close.

Trying hard to ignore Ethan's distractingly handsome figure next to him, Benji pulled open the top of the case. It was filled up to the brim with glistening chrome casing, tubing covered by ice. 

"Is something wrong?"

"Yes. I mean, no. I'm not sure. Are we sure this is a bomb?"

"That's what Luther's intel said. Why?"

"That here is a nitrogen cooling system. Here's the canister, and the tubing goes there, deeper into whatever that thing is. Hence the ice."

"That's... unusual, isn't it?"

"Very. And I bet that this is only the outer layer. Like a MRI machine. The nitrogen is only there to keep the helium cool."

"How cool?"

"4 degrees above absolute zero. Very, very cool."

He turned around it, staring at the soldering of the cryogenic shield. Precise. Some of those parts had definitely been carved with a laser.

"Who did Luther said we were dealing with?" he asked, frowning.

"Still trying to figure that one out," Ethan said apologetically.

"Well, you can cross out all the backwater guerrillas and part time gangsters. This is... this is advanced. Never seen anything like it."

"You'll figure it out," Ethan said, patting his back. His hand lingered there, an instant too long. 

Not for the first time, Benji promised that if they survived this, he'd say something. He wasn't sure what. But he would, this time.

He bit his tongue and went to work, praying that three hours would be enough.

***

"Ethan. You need to get out of there," Benji said, the faintest hint of despair starting to rise up his throat. One hour left, and the clock was still ticking. If there was a clock. 

"I'm not leaving you, Benji. You'll figure it out."

"I appreciate the sentiment, I really do, but I have no idea how this... thing works, much less how to disarm it."

"So tell me. What have you got?"

"First. The box. It's not a box. Well, it is, but it's not only that. It's a shield against electromagnetic radiations. Whatever they have in there, it's sensitive. It means no external trigger, too, which is good for us."

Ethan looked at him, focused on his every word. Benji wanted to kiss him. He felt himself calming down.

"The helium suggests supraconduction. Now the question is for what? A magnet? Some kind of quantum system?"

"Not a bomb?"

"Not a bomb like I've ever seen before. But if were good at anything, it's pushing magnificent science to make weapons, so I wouldn't bet against it."

Ethan smiled.

"You like it?"

"I hate it! It's a bomb! But yes, this is a beautiful design and I want to take it apart for the rest of my life."

"Tell me about it," Ethan asked.

"This part here is a coaxial line, it directs some kind of signals toward the amplifiers, there," Benji explained. It centered him, talking. It also made him all the more aware that if he died today, so would Ethan. 

***

Twelve minutes.

"There!" Benji screamed. "There. Sorry, nothing to worry about. See that? That's a bomb! An easy, everyday, fragmentation bomb."

"And that's good because..."

"Because it's a fail safe! If I pull it off, we can open the other one and see what's in that baby."

Benji went to work immediately, taking wire after wire apart, carefully dismounting the plastic from the casing. 

Now came the real fun.

"Ethan. Please, go away," he asked once more. He knew what the answer would be.

"No. I'm staying," Ethan said, softly.

"We might die."

"Then I'd rather be with you," he replied. Gentle, determined.

Benji couldn't fail.

***

"Ethan. Two minutes." 

The bomb laid open, its precise circuits exposed to the air, still as mysterious as they were.

"I know." 

Benji's mind was running at three thousand kilometers a second.

"Ok. Ok. There's something I can try. I'm not sure it will work. It may not work," he said, ripping one of the coaxial cables out. Well, it hadn't made it explode, which was already something. "Give me the relay."

"There," Ethan said. He was hiding his nervousness well. That, or he was beyond being scared, which would be worrying. One more thing to talk about, if they survived. 

Benji jammed the relay into the cable, turned it to maximum power, and counted the second.

Ethan kneeled next to him and held his hand as the counter reached zero.

***

"What?" Benji slurred. His head hurt. Which meant it was still attached to his body. Small mercies.

What had happened?

A warm hand on his own. A trusting smile. Trust he didn't deserve.

"Ethan!" he screamed, or tried to. It sounded like a wounded animal's wail. His limbs felt foreign, his nerves slowed down to a snail's pace. He couldn't think. It hurt too much. He wanted to roll into a ball and drown into the pain, disappear into the ground.

But Ethan was out there. 

Stumbling, he reached ahead of him until he felt a solid body.

"Ethan. Ethan," he pleaded.

Slowly, he dragged himself close and threw his arms around him. A warm chest, moving up and down.

Benji sobbed.

He rested his forehead against Ethan's neck, and offered himself a few instants of oblivion.

***

When he came to, Benji was still clutching Ethan against his chest. He was shuddering, violently. Strange. If anything, Benji found the heat oppressive, turning his skin clammy and making it hard to think. Benji pulled him closer, more by instinct than anything else. Slowly, Ethan stopped shaking. He breathed in deeply, burying his face in Ethan's soft hair, his hands clutched against Ethan's heart. Somehow, embracing Ethan pushed that terrible heat away, and he started to feel coherent again.

"Ethan? You alright?"

" 'm ok. Cold. You?"

"Ok too. Can you move?"

"I think. What the hell happened?"

Benji closed his eyes, struggling to remember that fraction of an instant before everything turned black. His head swam, nausea rising at the back of his throat.

"Don't know," he said, gingerly sitting up. Well, they were both in once piece, so whatever he'd done to that bomb must have been enough to stop it going off. He held out a hand to Ethan and winced at the contact.

"You're burning up. Why didn't you say anything before we left?" Benji asked.

"I wasn't sick this morning. I don't know, everything feels..."

"Off?"

"Yeah."

"Let's go back to the safehouse. We'll sleep it off, and deal with it tomorrow."

"Wouldn't want to worry Luther," Ethan smiled.

They stood up, holding themselves on the pillar, and onto each other.

"I'm glad you're alright," Ethan said.

"You too. And, Ethan?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you for staying with me."

"Always." 

***

"What the hell took you so long?" Luther asked.

"We found the bomb," Benji said, the words resonating across his skull like thunder. The heat was back again, pressing down his spine, encircling his head like a vice. 

Holding himself against the hall, Ethan was shivering.

"Ethan, are you ok?" Luther said, taking Ethan by the shoulder and leading him to a chair, where he collapsed. "What happened with the bomb? Did you disarm it?"

"Not sure," Benji said, closing his eyes, trying to keep the burning feeling of his skin at bay. That scorching heat was everywhere around him, as if he was inside an oven, burning. The air in his lungs felt liquid, heavy like mercury, and no gulp of air could chase the feeling he was drowning. His fingers tingled, he wanted to press then against his chest, away from whatever flames his mind had summoned, but they were everywhere. Sweat was dripping down his forehead, into his eyes. His heart was beating like he'd ran until he collapsed, the blood rushing against his temples. His headache was unbearable. He wondered if he was dying. "Ethan's sick. He's burning up."

"You don't look so great either."

"I'll be alright," Benji answered. God, he felt like he was going to pass out. "Look after him, will you?" he managed to mutter, before losing his fight against gravity.

Luther caught him, like a doll.

"Benji? Benji, was there any kind of chemical in that bomb?"

He wanted to answer, wanted to say that he'd been as careful as he could, that he'd never let Ethan near a chemical bomb going off, that there was something very, very wrong. But the heat won.

***

He opened his eyes to find Luther sitting by his bed, a thermometer in hand. He wanted to pass out again.

"Where's Ethan?" Benji slurred. 

"In the other room. How are you feeling, Benji?"

" 's hot. My head hurts."

"You should be dead. You and Ethan both."

Benji didn't know if it was the words themselves trace of fear in his voice that shocked him awake.

"What?"

"Your body temperature is 10°C."

"Thermometer's broken."

"I thought that too. That's why I tried it with two others."

"Ethan?"

"You were right about him burning up. His ear melted the thermometer before it could measure his temperature."

Benji's head spun.

" 's impossible."

"I know. But you're there. Ethan's there. What the fuck was in this bomb, Benji?"

Once more, Benji had no answer. One thought circled his fogged mind.

"Can I see Ethan?"

He needed... He needed to see him. He needed to see he was alive, that he was safe.

Luther nodded, helping him up and across the hall. Ethan was lying on the bed, curled up in a ball, hands pressed against his throat, as if he were trying to desperately warm them up. 

"Ethan?"

Ethan raised his eyes to him, a pitiful look written all over his face. He tried to speak, but his teeth were chattering so hard he had to give up. Benji sat down heavily at the end of the bed, before wrapping himself around Ethan. His chest was pressed against Ethan's back, his left arm resting against his chest, their legs against each others. 

He didn't know what he was doing. He'd never have dared to come so close, so much closer than a colleague, if he hadn't been sick. But it felt right.

"Is that ok?"

Ethan nodded weakly, and held his hand close to his heart, pulling him closer still, laying his head on Benji's right arm. 

"You'll be alright," Luther said. "You'll be alright, both of you."

The feeling of Ethan's heart against the palm of his hand, beating slowly, with regularity, made him trust they would be.

***

Benji woke up to the feeling of soft hairs against his face and a chest moving against his own. He stirred, memories coming back in a jumbled heap. The bomb. That nauseating heat. Ethan, burning. Luther's words.

Clarity had returned to his brain enough that the insanity of the situation finally swallowed him.

What had been in this bomb? 

What was going on with them?

How were they even alive?

He'd messed up. He should have known to send Ethan away, no matter how much he protested. He should have seen the danger, he should have understood it. It has his job, the one thing he was supposed to be good at, and he'd let Ethan down.

A hand stroked his arm, gently, snapping him out of his spiraling thoughts. 

"Ethan," he breathed. "How are you feeling?"

"Alive. Strange."

"Tell me about it," he smiled.

Slowly, the prospect of facing the day started to become less daunting. They were alive, both of them. Luther was there, with them. They'd figure it out. They always did.

"We should get up," Ethan said.

"Do we have to?" Benji groaned in answer, unwilling to think how wonderful the feeling of Ethan in his arms was, how natural it felt. Was that was Ethan felt, too? 

"Cup of coffee?"

"Enticing enough, I guess."

Slowly, they got up, and walked carefully to the kitchen. Luther was there, working at his computer. Benji knew he'd been there since last night, trying to figure out what had happened, or who was had the origin of the bomb.

"How are you both?" he asked, looking at them like he was worried they'd drop dead at any moment. Well, that was fair.

"Alive," Ethan answered. "More or less."

"Coffee's in the pot."

Benji grabbed two cups and filled them, handing one to Ethan. 

The room was uncomfortably hot, even it if it was nowhere near the scorching heat of yesterday . The mug radiated heat, making him nauseous, even as he held it in his hand. He blew on the surface, making it ripple.

It turned to a block of ice.

Benji dropped the cup, letting it shatter on the tiles. 

He pointed at it, mouth gaping, wordless.

It had turned to ice. 

He'd turned it to ice.

"What the fuck?" Luther said.

Ethan and Luther stared at the black block of ice, among shards of white porcelain, understanding and disbelief painting themselves on their face.

Benji sat down at the table before he fainted. This went against... well, everything. Thermodynamics. Logic. The laws of physics. His understanding of the world. Trembling, he reached to the hot pot of coffee. It burned him. And then, slowly, frost blossomed around his fingertips, encroaching the entire pot, until the liquid inside solidified. 

He couldn't believe it. He had no choice but to believe it. 

"Let's not tell the IMF about this," Luther said, as soon as he'd recovered the power of speech.

Ethan nodded. Benji knew he was right. He didn't know what was going on, what he'd just done, but he knew one thing. If the IMF found out, they'd rip them apart. What did it say, that this had all been their first thought after finding out something so unbelievable?

Slowly, he gathered his thoughts.

"So, uh, I'm cold. Body temperature around the one of a dead, frozen squid. Explains why I feel so hot all the time. I can make things cold, too. Does that make any sense to you?"

"None," Luther said. "At the risk of being obvious, this is some freaky shit."

"Ethan. You're cold all the time. You melted the damn thermometer. I bet if you touched that coffee pot, it'd get nice and warm again."

"I'm not as cold when I'm with you," Ethan interjected hesitantly. 

Luther frowned. 

"How come? If anything, cuddling with you must be like sleeping with a block of ice."

The more he thought of it, the more dread built in his stomach. Memories from his advanced quantum mechanics days at Oxford rose up at the back of his mind. His professor would have had a heart attack if she could see him.

"Maybe... And this makes absolutely no sense, from a current scientific knowledge point of view, so take it with a grain of salt. But maybe whatever was in that bomb... it put us in some kind of superposition. Nature doesn't like too much energy," he said, pointing at Ethan. "It'll escape. Light, transformation of matter, something. Doesn't like lack of energy either," he continued, hitting his own chest with a finger. "Cold things heat up. Vacuum fills. For us to exist like this makes no sense. Anomalies equilibrate."

He paused, trying not to let the terror boiling in his stomach show. Now was the part of his his hypothesis that scared him, more than anything he'd encountered before. 

"Except if we're the same. The same system, speaking in terms of physics. That's why we felt better when we were closer. Together, we're at equilibrium, we're stable. When we're apart... we're not."

He tried to read Ethan's expression, hoping he would find something there to anchor him. He only found fear, echoing his own.

"What if one of us dies? Or if we just get too far?" Ethan asked, brows furrowed.

"I don't know. It's fascinating, in a terrifying kind of way. We could try, gradually. With a few experiments, or a month or two, we could figure out..." he said, the cold fascination for a well made problem winning over the fear, for an instant. 

"Benji," Luther interrupted, gently. "That's a great idea, but whoever made that bomb is out there."

"I don't think it worked, the bomb. We must have managed to jam it enough it wouldn't do as much damage as it should have." It made no sense, otherwise. What kind of bomb turned people into living ice cubes for the hell of it? He dreaded to think what would have happened to them, to everyone in that building, if it had worked.

"Because you stopped it," Ethan said.

"Not enough," he answered, bitterness and guilt piercing uncontrollably. 

Ethan crossed the room, and put a reassuring hand on Benji's shoulder. 

"It's alright. It's not your fault."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he said. Of course it was his fault. His job, his responsibility. The selfish idea that Ethan was his to protect.

Ethan hugged him.

"We'll figure it out, I promise. We'll figure it out."

"You don't understand," Benji said, pulling away, his voice trembling. "I don't know how stable we are. Can we stay like this forever? Or is this going to kill us? You, me, both? Energy discharge aren't fun! Maybe that's what the bomb was supposed to do, create complementary states and then collapse them together, releasing the extra energy."

"Benji. It's going to be alright," Ethan said, taking his head into his hands. "What if you'd been alone, and that... energy had had nowhere to go, with me a mile away?"

"Don't know. Maybe I'd have died."

But then Ethan would have been safe.

"And no matter what... I'd rather be with you," Ethan smiled. Trusting. Open. Benji wanted to cry.

"Don't want to interrupt, but we need to figure out a plan of action," Luther said, looking at them with an eyebrow half raised. Benji felt his cheeks redden.

"They'll come back to pick up the bomb. We can track them from there," Ethan said. 

He shivered again.

Instinctively, Benji draped an arm around his shoulder. Color slowly came back to his lips, as he started to formulate a plan.

Maybe Ethan was right. Maybe they'd figure it out. They always had, in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and happy holidays to all!


End file.
